


half agony, etc

by lamphouse



Series: chronicle of the world we share [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/F, Genderswap, Georgian Period, Getting Together, References to Jane Austen, Spoilers for Persuasion by Jane Austen, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, Victorian, and I mean that as literally as possible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-25 06:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20372527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamphouse/pseuds/lamphouse
Summary: Crowley reads her first Jane Austen novel and promptly sleeps through the next seventy years to cope. In her defense, though, such a book is not to be soon recovered from.





	half agony, etc

**Author's Note:**

> I really do recommend reading _persuasion_ first, as it's a wonderful book and also [totally free](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/105/105-h/105-h.htm)

It starts with a book, because of course it does; things like this always start with innocuous, inanimate objects.

The book in question is two volumes, still in its brand new, temporary light blue paper wrappers. The owner had intended to have them bound relatively soon (and had in fact already sent off the other two volumes of the set, consisting of a different, less intriguing novel) but had been so eager to finish this story that they started reading immediately, only to lend it out right after finishing.

(In fact, the book will not be bound for several decades—or ever. The first fact is an accident, the second a deliberate choice, but she'll get to all that.)

This book (which currently sits on Crowley coffee table in a deceptively innocuous manner) is the most recent salvo in the waning war of attrition between an angel and a demon, and their last remaining major conflict, as it were. It is one of hundreds that Aziraphale has loaned Crowley over the course of their five thousand-and-change years of friendship, not even taking into account her attempts to engage the demon in the other forms of literature and so forth that predate novels, physical books, and even the written word.

Her strategy appears to be based on sheer numbers, in the apparent hopes that: with enough polite pressure the demon will read one; among the options Crowley will find something she actually enjoys, which, to be fair, has happened; and Aziraphale will have someone to talk to about her wide collection of favorites without having to permanently part with her stock or make new friends.

(It's a fairly complex plan considering that Aziraphale herself isn't fully aware of her own reasoning, but that's the cognitive dissonance of angels for you.)

The whole scheme has worked enough times to keep Aziraphale trying even when more often than not the books end up left on random shelves whenever Crowley is on her way out—something she didn't do this time. No, there's something odd about this one, Crowley thinks to herself as she turns the slim volume in her hand.

Its aforementioned newness, for a start; despite having almost all the free time in the world, Aziraphale's to-read pile leaves her on an average five year delay unless it's an author she already loves. _Perpetually out of fashion as always_, Crowley thinks to herself, flipping through the pages back and forth, back and forth.

Second is its authorship: Jane Austen, who Crowley has already expressed enough of a disinterest in that Aziraphale had otherwise stopped bringing up. (Despite being the first published under that name, Aziraphale is always more than glad to fill Crowley in on all the literary gossip—until she realizes the demon is looking for new targets, at which point she usually stalks away in a huff.) A few strategically placed remarks about boring country romances and Aziraphale will change the subject, rolling her eyes, but for some reason still insisted Crowley take this one anyway.

Most of all, though, is the way she handed it over.

The scene is thus: Crowley has stopped by for tea. It's snowing (not so bad as the last year of lowercase hell on earth, but London is, as always, unprepared for proper winter weather) and even with all her layers it's a trial to get to the bookshop. Not that that would ever stop her, but still, it would've been nice not to have to add sitting on freezing leather to the usual proximity-to-horses discomfort of the cab ride over.

Skirts hiked enough to knock her boots off in the doorway (mud and snow covering the paint, doing her part to deter customers), Crowley holds in the worst of her shivers as she pushed open the door, which may or may not be locked but knows better than to stand in her way.

"Drove through a veritable blizzard for this, angel," she calls into the unlit storefront, "hope it's worth it!"

When Aziraphale doesn't appear in the doorway already with a biscuit in hand, Crowley peers perplexedly into the stacks, which are dark even sans glasses. Still no angel.

"Aziraphale, you _are_ here, right?"

Crowley feels herself thawing as she wanders through the ever-changing maze of shelves, shedding layers as she goes, so she knows Aziraphale must be around here somewhere; she's always far too worried about what might happen to her poor books without her there to watch over the furnace, either consciously or just with her ethereal presence.

"You haven't given up the ghost on me, have you?" She calls as she feels her way through the shelves. "Knock once for yes, twice for no."

When Crowley finally finds the door to the back room it's half open, warm light and the sound of pages being turned inching through.

Ah, of course. That explains it.

Crowley slips through the doorway to confirm her suspicions, and can't help but smile at the sight that greets her. It's so quintessentially Aziraphale: sitting at the table, neglected drink at her elbow and reading glasses on, absorbed in a world outside their own. She looks like one of those ideal little domestic scenes with her face in profile all glowing from the last light in the window and the candle before her. Knowing Aziraphale she's probably been sitting there so long one might _actually_ mistake her for a statue or something, but that only makes Crowley's smile grow wider.

Knowing what happens to those who interrupt Aziraphale's reading, though, Crowley walks through wordlessly and contents herself in the kitchen with the angel's stash of top tier biscuits. They're as impeccably preserved as ever and Crowley inhales a fair few of them before returning to check on the angel.

Still a few pages from the end, it seems. Crowley is about to turn back to get her some as well when Aziraphale pushes her glasses up into her hair—the first bit of movement in hours probably, it draws her attention.

It's only then that Crowley sees the tear, and the sheen of one having fallen before it on her cheek. She's struck slightly dumb by the sight. The poets were right: angels weeping is an image not easily dismissed, even when the viewer in question has seen the angel in various states of intoxication, distress, glee, and so on over the centuries. There's something disturbing and yet profoundly correct in that one perfect tear, though the effect tends toward the latter the longer Crowley stands there.

Thankfully Crowley is put out of her disturbance (if not misery) when Aziraphale finishes her book. She does as she always does, restoring the status quo with every familiar action; having already removed her glasses, she gently closes the book, sets her glasses atop it, leans back in her chair, and sighs. Her eyes stay shut "to let the last words sink in," she'd explained once somewhat impatiently, but Crowley has always privately thought was to let her poor eyes recover from not blinking so long. Now, she's starting to think that may be the truth. Given how wet her eyes were to begin with and all, Crowley can't help but explicate to herself with an air of light shock.

Shaking herself, Crowley crosses the room in even strides, as if trying to physically remove herself from the emotion. She drapes her last scarf across the back of the other chair in hopes of catching Aziraphale's attention with as little awkwardness as possible.

When this fails, she ducks in to take Aziraphale's stale cocoa back to the kitchen for her and says in a comic undertone as she passes, "I can't tell if that's a good sign or not."

Crowley isn't around to see Aziraphale startle, though she knows it happens, but honestly it's for the better. She doesn't want to see it, the way one doesn't want to see their childhood hero at the end of a trying day.

"Yes, it's rather... Well, Ms Austen has outdone herself again," Aziraphale says, not quite hiding the wetness in her voice.

"Isn't she dead?"

"Only recently. This is her last finished work, though finished is debatable I suppose." Passing the door, Crowley catches an unfortunate glimpse of Aziraphale composing herself. "Still, it's a beautiful turn in her writing. Much more emotional but with the same preciseness of wit."

Crowley returns with a tray carrying the rest of the biscuit stores and semi-matching cups, a bottle of wine under her arm in case. "I'll pretend I know what that means."

"I think you'd like her." Aziraphale takes one cup, sliding the plate closer to herself with a wary eye. "You would have gotten on well, you're the same sort of mean."

"I would take _offense_," Crowley says as she drags the novel across the table with a finger, "if I didn't know that any sort of 'mean' other than strictly Heavenly is frowned upon by your lot."

To this, Aziraphale says nothing, ostensibly because her mouth is full (though they both know that's just an excuse).

"Alright then." After setting aside Aziraphale's glasses, Crowley flips the book around. "So what's this one about?"

"That's the second volume," Aziraphale points out distantly. "It's—"

Her voice catches—a startling event in and of itself, let alone in the wake of Crowley's earlier spying. The demon jumps in with her line. "Dreadfully boring, probably."

"It's a rather lovely story," Aziraphale finishes. "About rediscovered love between two thought to be past the age of it. It has a... depth, that I think is often obscured in Austen's other work, and it's..."

It's a lot of stops and starts, for one. As masterful as she is at circling around what she really means, Aziraphale is never one to stutter. She always says what she says, regardless of whether it's truly as straightforward as that or not, but she's still got this haunted look that only changes when her eyes meet Crowley's, startling her into something softer.

"I really think you should read it, my dear." The words inexplicably have more gravity than they've carried any of the dozens of other times she has said them. "I think you might find something in it."

With that uneasy feeling of not understanding exactly what has happened but knowing it's important, Crowley shuts the volume before her and reaches for the other from Aziraphale.

Her mind is still fixed on that unknown when their fingers meet along the spine. It's like touching a hot stove—the real feeling comes after one has recoiled—and it stays in her fingertips even as she vanishes the books into her coat pocket, dangling over the edge of the counter in front.

The next thing Crowley touches is the bottle of wine, which sets the rest of the evening speeding along. Bits of the evening peek through the fog, anecdotes about convincing aristocrats to pour money into ridiculous fashions told just to see Aziraphale's familiar frown, anything that has no connection to literature of any sort.

It isn't until after she's stumbled home (that is, stumbled from the bookshop's door into her own flat, bypassing the cold with a quick miracle) and thrown herself on the sofa that she is reminded, the awkward, floppy shape of the unbound book wedged under her thigh, wrapped in her coat like a cocoon as she is.

And so, after winding herself up in all the twists of branching factors, here Crowley sits, considering the facts assembled before her—the book and all its resonances. Innocuous, unbound, brand new, and yet something odd, meaningful, and old seems to wait behind the covers. Something deep. Something that an angel would shed a tear for, that wove its way into Aziraphale's voice and face as she gave the entire "it" to Crowley.

That "it," though—the entirety of it in all its unfathomability—grates on Crowley like a grain of sand under her nails, and she flips it open with defensive contempt.

"Like I need someone to teach me about persuasion," she mumbles to herself as she skips the front pages. "I doubt you know more than me, _Jane_. Original tempter right here."

She holds the book before her as casually as possible, as though she's just reading it because it happens to be in her line of sight, and nearly gives up then and there. The overwhelming wet-blanketry she's come to dread of the Georgian novelist builds with every clause, every inch of pedigree threatening to put her to sleep (and not because she hasn't bothered to sober up). She wants to throw it out the window and be done with it, but...

Well, Aziraphale's face. The way her brown eyes had darkened; the slow, careful sweep of her hand under them, gathering up errant tears. Aziraphale is a practical sort, and no run-on baronetage entry could bring about the sort of look Crowley'd never quite seen in the millennia they've known each other.

So she reads on. The voice starts to come through, the mean one Aziraphale had mentioned. Crowley finds herself huffing out air in lieu of conscious laughter at the cast of caricatures, unrealistic at times but never without comedy. She rolls her eyes somewhat at this second bloom shit, the praise of Anne's sensibleness and quiet, but that vague mystery that is the promise of plot tugs her along.

When the first mention of Wentworth arrives Crowley thinks, _Ah, here we go_. Here comes the fluttering romance, the counting of the dances, the parental deference and asking of hands after less than a handful of conversations.

But then, it seems, Miss Austen has skipped all that. Anne's witless family friend persuades (ha!) her to call it off, making seven years of awkward-but-proper loneliness and attempts to forget everything the only reception to follow. That tugs at something between Crowley's ribs, a tug which tightens with Anne's proximity to Wentworth, across dining rooms and misty beaches. She starts to take things to heart, all the quips about the age of emotion sticking to her, washed up into an aching familiarity. It's all looks across crowds and knowing when the other has left the room by the change in the air. All the remembering—Crowley knows that. All the understanding, of how they think, of where in conversation they would laugh or sigh. All the familiarities growing familiar themselves as other faces superimpose themselves over the plot.

As soon as Crowley starts seeing it, she can't escape it. Wentworth helps Anne into a carriage and Crowley _feels_ it, but it's Aziraphale's hand on hers, both of them in gloves, and the carriage is in Russia rather than Somersetshire, during a somewhat disastrous tug of war over the tsarina. Wentworth gives Anne an umbrella and that's even worse, because it's Eden all over again isn't it? Crowley shivering in her scales under the cover of feathers, the air around her warmed by something other than the sun for the first time, the sound of the rain feeling far off despite only touching the ground inches from her face.

Needless to say Crowley is wound tighter than the most abused pocketwatch by the time the worst of it begins, but at the same time she's sort of suspecting it can't get any worse than it already is. Except, it's the inanimate objects again: a letter tucked under some papers, a pair of consciously forgotten gloves. Something written in the place of a conversation. Crowley's unnecessary heartbeat has been picking up with every sentence, but when she reads that letter, the letter, the feeling leaves her hands, blood too busy running frantic in her heart and her cheeks.

_Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings_—

The book hits the far wall with the smack of high velocity, quickly accompanied by the whoosh of lamps extinguishing themselves. Crowley draws into herself as though burned, her wet eyes flashing in the streetlamps as she stares warily at the outline of the book. For some reason she feels like the plot is continuing without her, mocking her behind the pages, and something else lurks behind that, some other mocking—

Crowley crawls into bed mechanically and knows without any conscious decision that she won't be waking up in the morning. Yes, that's it. She'll just stay unconscious until this feeling, this mix of betrayal, eye-watering hope, and the ache of having not breathed for days, fades from her memory. And then, when Crowley wakes up, no more wistful happy endings, no sweeping romance, and no empty swooping feeling in the pit of her stomach. Sleep through the worst of it and wake up pretending nothing ever happened. That's the plan.

(Not long into this sleep Crowley feels something, an unconscious shifting in her bed to draw the blankets nearer or something like that, and her sleep changes. Demons don't dream—that is, demons don't sleep, except for the one, and as a general rule she doesn't do a lot of dreaming—but if they did, this would be like a nightmare suddenly metamorphosing into a peaceful dream. Perhaps it's better explained as the tenor of her sleep changing, from tenuous and overstretched to something deep and warm, like floating on the sea in summer and suddenly sinking into it like jelly. It doesn't last for the entirety of her rest, but still, it slides her into a neutral state that seems to stretch on forever—indeed forgetting the reason she went to sleep at all.)

(It really only lasts a few decades, until she wakes up the one time because she's suddenly cold. She stops, halfway to the wardrobe of extra blankets, when she notices the light in the room: a bright streak running across the wall. Parting the curtains she sees more lights, dozens of long garlands zagging in the sky, and the upturned faces of silent people in the street below, equally glowing and rapturous. In the silence and in her half-awake state, it feels as though this moment exists outside of the course of time. Some lights travel faster than others. After a minute of this, she goes back to bed.)

The sun is streaming in the window when Crowley finally awakes, nothing like the world she'd last seen in a way that paints those last few hours of consciousness into one long dream, phantasmagoria easily dismissed without examination in the face of a new day.

She leans out of the window and conjures herself the outfit of the first woman she sets eyes on, who is unfortunately rather drab and needs some sprucing up, which Crowley is more than happy to make happen for the both of them.

When a glance in the mirror tells Crowley she looks like a piece of ribbon candy come alive, she quickly returns to the sleek dark colors she's always preferred. (Unfortunately, Ms Agatha Weatherford had crossed the street, ceasing to exist in the demon's mind, and so continues to look like a garish grandmother's sofa.)

Crowley easily falls back into the routines of her life as last lived, making her bed with a snap of her fingers and evaporating what dust has dared to settle on her things. The plants look alright, though it takes them a moment to snap to attention when she starts glowering, so Crowley mentally schedules some disciplinary sessions in their future. Maybe in a few days she'll sneak into some rich families' homes for inspiration on the current fashions, but for now it's nice to have all her things in order, some combination of familiar and fresh.

She's glaring the tarnish off the vanity mirror when she spots it, over her shoulder, sitting on the nightstand. God, that book. One glance at it brings her mind right back to Aziraphale, undoing a century's hard work. Honestly, He was right, knowledge is the worst sin.

And yet, before she knows what she's doing she's grabbed the book, which falls open to that scene she'd thrown it down at seventy years ago. Eventually she'll realize that the book sitting neatly on the table means someone had moved it, and that the only person who could get into her flat was Aziraphale, but for now she finds herself drawn in by the words again, neatly skipping over the rest of the chapter she left unfinished.

So Anne and Wentworth get together. Anyone could have guessed or, at the very least, hoped—even Crowley, whose own reading drew parallels that then sunk into her lungs like a dagger. They are reunited, and Anne's family is still full of monsters, and it all sketches out the path to their happily ever after, but...

She can't help lingering on the details. They're lingering around the greenhouse plants, and this pings half a thought about how shouldn't Crowley's plants have died? and Anne begins to go on about finding the impartial truth of her own right or wrongness, and that pings another thought.

Or rather, not another thought, but the same thought again, because the thought was: _Aziraphale_.

The thought often was, over the years, but here it was like that first time all over again, the shape of the name wholly new. It was like looking at a painting so long you think you have it memorized and suddenly someone turns on a light, and you realize the background is full of shapes, the faces full of lines, clothes with stitches, folds, microscopic patterns, and the once familiar outline hits you all at once with its newness.

The rest comes before Crowley can begin to unpack this realization, because it's not just Aziraphale, it's Aziraphale and plants, and water, rain, black and white morality. It's a garden where an angel and demon met, surrounded by all the life in the world, verdant and shining in the rain. They debated right and wrong together, as God watered the plants, both for the first time. And then it's not a garden but a greenhouse (or as close as one gets in city apartments) like the book says, and Aziraphale, of course Aziraphale, because who else would water Crowley's plants for seventy years? Doing some waiting of her own.

When Wentworth asks whether Anne would have married him earlier if he'd asked again, and Crowley is suddenly desperate to hear the answer, trying to will her brain to process the text faster so that she could know that much sooner. The whole thing seems to have shifted, turned around so she's picturing the same room from another angle, a few feet to the left.

"I could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of your character," Crowley mumbles to herself along with Wentworth. "I could not bring it into play; it was overwhelmed, buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under year after year."

Crowley considers the book. It had been sitting on the table by her bed, on top of a half-empty box of stationary and another borrowed book. It wasn't, she realizes, crumpled on the floor by the fireplace, because just as Aziraphale must have watered the plants she also picked up the book.

Not long after the demon had gone to sleep, apparently, given that the page in question has only a shadow of a crease. Crowley pieces it together in her mind the same way she did the story. Aziraphale had come to see her and instead found the book on the ground, which would be a shock since Crowley had always taken care of things she borrowed. Aziraphale would have gone to pick it up and folded back the corner, and seen what part it was, probably noticed the agitated way Crowley had thrown herself into sleep, and come to the conclusion that...

"It is a sort of pain, too, which is new to me," Wentworth says again, the pain of having been able to stop the agony of separation, and Crowley feels it before she knows why.

When she realizes _that_, she is already out the door.

Aziraphale, shockingly, is helping a customer when Crowley barrels in, though other than that hardly a thing about bookshop and angel has changed. Same frown when she hears the bell over the door, same surprised smile when she sees it's only Crowley. It makes Crowley's heart stop for a moment, even as her breath continues heavily.

As Crowley pants in the doorway, Aziraphale hands a receipt to the delivery boy and waves him off saying, "Toby, I'm afraid I have an old friend to reunite with right now, but thank you for stopping by."

The young man, boy— Whatever, a body moves past Crowley, she isn't paying attention to anything other than the being behind the counter.

"Well," Aziraphale says with a quiet, teasing smile, "I trust you had a good rest."

"I, er." She casts her mind about, at first for something suave and impressive, then ultimately for literally any words. Ms Austen's are still crowding her conscious, though, so she blurts, "Tell me I am not too late, that these precious feelings are not gone forever."

Aziraphale blinks twice. "I'm sorry, what?"

"It, the—"

Crowley rushes past to the shelf she knows always carries Aziraphale's favorites comma recent. Ignoring the unfamiliar titles and the angel's "Crowley, what on earth..." drifting behind her, she finds the right title easily and flips through its worn pages, shoving her glasses on top of her head.

"For you alone I think and plan," Crowley recites, her frenzy unsoothed by Aziraphale's blank look. "I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been," she shuts the book and waves it around a bit for emphasis, "but never inconstant."

Aziraphale says nothing, but Crowley is fairly certain that if she squints she can almost see a glimmer of repressed hope. But fairly certain is not certain itself, and Crowley balks at the brief but encompassing silence that immediately follows.

"You know," Crowley adds lamely, "and I am half agony, et cetera."

Quickly approaching whole agony as Aziraphale's face shutters, though. That hint of maybe-hope-and-definitely-confusion flipping over inch by inch into the kind of pleasant interest Crowley knows means she's got way too much going on under the surface to bother putting on any expression—which could be a great thing or the collapse of Crowley's entire life, and not being able to tell the difference is killing her, literally shutting down her organs one by one.

"Well I'm glad you enjoyed it," Aziraphale says after a moment of this torment, "though I have to admit, I didn't think it would take you so long to finish it. It is a relatively short work, after all."

"Aziraphale." That face, still. Crowley has passed through agony and straight into baffled frustration, book and glasses dropped on the shelf so she can gesture. "I love you."

Aziraphale's eyes flicker into hurt for a second. "Well yes, Crowley, and of course I—"

"I fucked up," Crowley continues. "I— I didn't hear what you were trying to say, I thought I was Anne but it turns out I'm Wentworth, and I've been unknowingly proposing for eight hundred years."

"Crowley," she attempts to interrupt, but something wretchedly hopeful breaks across her face that fuels Crowley's speech.

"I thought I was the one being foolish but it turns out that was you. But I forgive you, right? like Captain Fred said, bit of a mea culpa too, overwhelmed by emotion." Crowley feels herself babbling but can't stop. Once the words started, the floodgates had opened, and now she was forty miles up the proverbial river and still going. "Not that I'm letting you off easy, angel. You could've just said rather than hope I'd work it out myself."

"Crowley," she tries again, more forcefully.

"Honestly, I feel like you maybe should've seen that coming. I don't have the greatest reading comprehension, you of all people should know—"

This time Aziraphale's intervention is more effective as it comes physically, in the form of covering Crowley's lips with her own—that is to say, a kiss.

Jane Austen never wrote any physical affection past that required for a dance. This is usually chalked up to adherence to Regency decency for either her sake or her readers (despite the fact that her peers were writing all sorts) and an emphasis on the proper courtship rather than the outcome. One may wonder how Austen, with all her pin pricking wit and subtle innuendo, would tackle the subject, but most agree her stories fare just fine without that degree of physical intimacy.

Perhaps the question that should be asked, then, is how could she? How could she fit all this feeling into words without filling an entire volume with a single kiss? Jane Austen writes a touch of hands helping one into a carriage and it takes a paragraph for the narrative to recover from the feeling of it. The distance, the physical longing between the atoms of one and another, is so much that to see them touch is like a cosmic event—and _that_ Crowley gets, because Aziraphale's lips touch her and it's a supernova, her atoms as big as planets as they shatter under the heat and gravitational force, unable to bring herself to breathe.

Each part in the whole series of touches—quick and soft, first the hand on her upper arm, then the other on her opposite cheek as the part of Crowley's mind not occupied with rambling throws itself back and forth, then lips on hers short circuiting all thought—is full of enough meaning on its own to fill a novel, maybe two. Crowley wouldn't know where to begin describing it, and her mind only recovers enough to tell her body to respond, trying not to clutch too fervently as she reaches for Aziraphale's waist, trying not to be too much too soon.

But Aziraphale takes it all, and asks for more. Crowley offers an inch and Aziraphale takes a mile, thumb on her cheek and smile under her lips. Aziraphale takes all her restrained fumblings and pulls at their sewn up edges until the rest comes pouring out because she...

Wants it? Wants Crowley? Signs point to yes, and something rises up in her chest. Her hands twist at the small of Aziraphale's back, the ensuing wrinkles evidence of her first real temptation since waking—not that she needs to do anything more than exist to be tempting, apparently, and isn't that a thrill? And so is Aziraphale's cautious but steady hand on her arm, and the gentle way their breaths mingle when they part.

"See," Crowley says when she's regained enough control over her lungs. "that's more like it. Straightforward. To the point."

Aziraphale has half a hint of reprimand in her expression but it doesn't last, which leads to another thing Crowley had almost forgotten: the way Aziraphale's eyes shine moments before she says something far too nice.

"I'm glad you approve of my methods." Her fingertips brush Crowley's cheekbone, the curve of her ear. "Though yours were none too shabby. Dramatic love confessions and quoting romantic literature? You've gone soft in your old age."

Demons can't blush, so if Crowley's face looks any redder it's a trick of the light (and if Aziraphale notices how hot Crowley's cheek is when she leans up to kiss it, she wisely says nothing).

"M'not soft," Crowley mumbles. "And I'm _not_ old. Not like that, at least. I'm young and fashionable and the like."

"Of course not, dearest." Aziraphale tucks a piece of hair behind her ear with an almost concerning amount of grace. "Would you like to have a seat? And I can catch you up on everything you've missed despite not growing any older?"

Crowley nods, chasing the touch. Now that she mentions it, the room is a little wobbly. Sitting might be good.

As Aziraphale disappears into the kitchen it gives Crowley time to think, but something about being this happy this soon after waking up from a long sleep scrambles the senses, and so she drifts into daydreams with uncharacteristic ease. Glorious fantasies wander through her head involving holding hands with Aziraphale across the table, holding hands with Aziraphale in the park, holding hands with Aziraphale while she's reading. A lot about holding hands, to be honest.

Her mind has started to move on to other things with hands (and subsequently gotten stuck on that strand of hair Crowley hadn't even noticed was loose) when said angel returns. Crowley accepts one of the mismatched china cups with a painfully fond smile, though it deflates slightly when Aziraphale sets her own the table in favor of standing next to it stiffly.

"...Everything alright?"

"Crowley." She flushes and wrings with her hands. "About the book..."

When she doesn't continue, Crowley prompts, "You can have it back, if you'd like. I know how you are about first editions. Though I will say," she turns to her tea as it drifts from wry to sappy and back, "I think I'm starting to get the appeal of them."

"No, I—" Aziraphale sits down suddenly and looks somehow more embarrassed. "You may keep it, absolutely. No, not that, it's only... Well, in the interest of honesty, I thought it best to tell you that I hadn't exactly meant anything in particular by giving you... the book..."

She trails off as Crowley takes her turn at embarrassment.

"You mean you didn't—" Crowley covers her own response by gulping tea, which unfortunately does nothing more than make her mouth burn in addition to her face.

"Not that I resent the conclusion!" After a few attempts, Aziraphale manages to set her hand on Crowley's, because such a thing apparently took more nerve than kissing her had. "I'm sure you're ultimately right and that, subconsciously, that is what I meant to say, it just wasn't so... _deliberate_ as that."

In Aziraphale's defense, she says it in the kindest way possible, and the physical contact is as soothing as it is exciting. None of that does anything to change the content of what she says, but Crowley mentally gives her points for that in the midst of her tiny panic attack.

"So when I came in here and started quoting it at you..." Her voice comes out higher than she thought possible.

"Oh, you—" Aziraphale stands again and walks around to Crowley's side of the table, offering her hand. "Come here."

She turns before Crowley even takes it and leads them over to the sofa, where they sit knee to knee. That one touch leeches most of the anxiety built up in Crowley's shoulders; the rest keeps her from holding Aziraphale's gaze longer than thirty seconds, though it gets easier when every time she looks back Aziraphale is smiling that much wider.

"Crowley," Aziraphale starts.

"Mhm."

Aziraphale takes her hand again with some seriousness. "Don't be upset."

"I'm not!"

"But you're getting there, I can tell."

Crowley stays silent, as this is not untrue. Rather than continue to have her face give away everything she's thinking, though, she tips forward to lay her head high on Aziraphale's shoulder. Aziraphale, for her part, takes it in stride, her arms coming around Crowley's back.

"Easy for you to say," Crowley says after a moment. "You're not the one who looked like an idiot."

Aziraphale hums contemplatively. "I'm flattered to hear you don't think I've been as foolish as you have."

"Oh sure, plenty of times, just not here."

"I believe it's safe to say we've both made our fair share of mistakes over the years, regarding what lies between us." Aziraphale's cheek rests on Crowley's hair. "What matters is that now we understand each other."

"Sure."

"And that you know that I am yours," she continues, "as I always have been, regardless of how willing I have been to admit that to myself, not to mention you."

At this Crowley can't help wriggling with embarrassment, even as the warmth threatens to overtake all her senses. A string of awkward consonants is muffled in Aziraphale's shoulder but the words have let all the air out of her protests. Sure, she'll suffer from bouts of debilitating embarrassment over her presumptuousness for years to come, but for now all that is infinitely less pleasurable than what lies in the near future.

She recovers admirably, unfolding herself and mentally shaking herself back into form. Aziraphale's eyes narrow as the familiar devious smile comes over the demon's face, old instincts coming out too late to stop Crowley's head landing in her lap with the grin of a cat with a hundred canaries.

"So tell me," Crowley drawls, "for which of my bad parts—" Aziraphale sighs. "Come _on_, I've been waiting to use that one since it was written."

"Really?" Unfortunately the way Aziraphale says it is not in the swooning tone Crowley had hoped for but instead a skeptical one.

"Yes!" She sits up and twists to face Aziraphale, all the better to defend herself. "They were undoubtedly based on us. Beatrice _is_ you, angel, face it."

The pet name (which Crowley has to finally admit is just that) falls off her tongue too quickly to second guess—though, as it turns out, it sticks out less because of the sudden sweetness of the underlying affection and more because of it brings to light the sudden unangelic light in Aziraphale's eyes.

Aziraphale hums, the quirk of her lips something that on anyone else would be called devious. "Between this and Miss Austen I'm beginning to think there might be two bibliophiles in this relationship after all."

"Now hold on..."

"And what other great romances have you been thinking of us as?" Aziraphale continues with a complete smile that is, yes, undeniably mischievous. "Achilles and Patroclus? Dante and Beatrice? Hamlet and Horatio?"

Crowley makes a face. "Anything not incredibly tragic?"

"Guinevere and Lancelot," Aziraphale offers after careful consideration. "And the aforementioned pairs."

"Adam and Eve," Crowley counters. At Aziraphale's uncomfortable look, she clarifies, "Milton's versions, of course."

Rather than address that particular issue (a conversation Crowley is not looking forward to), Aziraphale slowly brushes some of Crowley's hair behind her ear and says softly, "Even then, I don't know if that meets your non-tragic criterion."

"Better than the real deal," Crowley mumbles, but her mind is already elsewhere. The tiniest touch of skin, the part of Aziraphale's finger that touches the shell of her ear through the gaps between individual strands of hair, sends a tingling from the back of Crowley's head down to her shoulders. She closes her eyes involuntarily, hardly hearing Aziraphale through the sudden pressure in her ears. Of course her body has decided now to remember it hasn't felt anything for seventy years and must make everything ten times as sensitive.

"Crowley?"

She nods. "Hm?"

Aziraphale's worried thumb strokes her cheek, which Crowley now feels is wet. "Everything alright?"

"Mhm."

Crowley opens her eyes to make sure Aziraphale is still where she thinks she is before ducking in to kiss her gently.

"Perfectly fine," she backs off to say before laying her head back in Aziraphale's lap, both because she feels that crying relief about to wash over her completely andpartially because she'll do whatever it takes to keep Aziraphale's hand on the back of her head. (Of course, Crowley doesn't have to do anything, but the last conscious twenty-four hours have been a lot to process and any more revelations can wait until she has a little rest.)

"You know, you have missed quite a bit," Aziraphale says not wholly kindly, but still warm. "Literature wise, I mean. And now that we're to be intimate—"

Crowley pulls a face. "Oh, God, don't say it like that."

"—I'm afraid you'll have to listen to my summary of the century's finest works."

"Does that include recitations?" She rolls over to look up at Aziraphale with a sly smile. "Are you going to read me love poems, angel? Do you have a volume hidden back there, lying in wait?"

Unfortunately Crowley's maneuvering means Aziraphale can look her right in the eye as she says, "I've been reading them to myself in vain hope of this moment for decades. I don't need books anymore."

It falls like an anchor where it should have been a balloon, far more weighty than Aziraphale obviously intended it to be. Crowley understands; she had similarly tripped over "to decide whether I enter your father's house" earlier in her reading (and though Crowley is not one to worry at blasphemy the comparison still sits unevenly on her shoulders). With so much history between them, so much known about the other's proclivities and shortcomings and achievements over the years, they have often wandered into meaning too much. Apparently this development will only worsen that. But then again, who's to say it's worse?

Crowley turns again, Aziraphale's hand disappearing and just as easily reappearing in her hair. It feels like the warm rays of the first sun of spring, something Crowley hasn't felt in a long time but finds herself able to look through the winter ahead to imagine again.

All from a hand on her head. It seems so simple when put that way.

A quiet understanding passes between the two before Crowley says in a subdued voice, "You can read some, if you like."

Aziraphale smooths back Crowley's hair and begins, "The face of all the world is changed, I think, since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul..."

As the angel continues her recitations, Crowley closes her eyes—not to sleep, just to rest—and though the world continues it's rapid journey into the future there, in that time warp of a bookshop, two immortal beings catch up together, with no regret for the past.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic dedicated to my mother on the occasion of her birthday. may she never read it but unconsciously benefit from the fact that there is some good omens persuasion content out there in her name
> 
> I stand by the fact that, regardless of gender, crowley slept through the 19th century bc, like all of us, he read jane austen's persuasion and got so fucked up by it he had to sleep it off for ages. regardless, expect an update in a few days when I inevitably take offense with the number of adverbs in this. as is, all recognizable quotes are from _persuasion_, natch, except for the poem aziraphale quotes at the end, which is the [seventh](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43735/) of elizabeth barrett browning's _sonnets from the portuguese_
> 
> ("but but but keaton there weren't really indoor bathrooms in the early 19th century—" the man invented helicopters by name in the 1500s shush)
> 
> (and yes, I fudged it to 1833 just for the leonids, but in my defense I was left unattended listening to mitski's "pink in the night" and reading random wikipedia articles at 3am so can you blame me. I also learned a lot about early 19th bookbinding! who says fanfiction can't be a learning opportunity)
> 
> tumblr @[lamphous](http://lamphous.tumblr.com)


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